Walmart CEO says company won’t use AI to set personalized prices

Walmart's keeping artificial intelligence out of pricing.

John Furner, president and CEO of Walmart Inc., addressed mounting concerns about companies using customers' personal information to charge more, writing in a Sept. 25 letter that "we price the product, not the person."

While AI has added "incredible new ways" for the retail giant to serve customers and members, including through Sparky, Walmart's GenAI shopping assistant, it "rightfully also raises questions about the information it has access to."

"When you engage with Sparky, that’s an invitation to serve you better, not to use your personal information to set a personalized price. We’ve never used the relationships our associates have with customers to charge more, and we won’t do that with AI," Furner said.

In addition to barring dynamic pricing, a controversial practice used to base the cost of items on evolving market trends, Walmart has also vowed to be responsible with its customers' personal information and "honor the choices you make."

Furner's letter comes more than a month after Walmart reported its slowest quarterly comparable sales growth in six years and warned shoppers were likely being squeezed by high gasoline prices, stoking concerns that pressure on U.S. consumers is mounting, according to…

Original source: https://www.usatoday.com/money/